Quote from: Hopkins92 on April 17, 2025, 02:23:51 PMI don't claim to be a historian or anything, but doesn't it seem like there are a lot more of these going on than ever before? By a significant amount?

And I don't think you can just point to closures.

Thoughts?

As far back as I can remember D3 has always been pretty fluid in terms of conferences. Some conferences are more stable than others of course, but as the largest division in the NCAA, with 340 or so schools, movement is pretty much guaranteed.

Quote from: BlueJay95 on April 16, 2025, 12:49:24 PMSUNY New Paltz is moving to the NJAC in 26-27. It was announced last summer.

https://njacsports.com/news/2024/7/2/general-suny-new-paltz-to-become-a-full-member-of-the-njac-in-2026-27.aspx

Doesn't mean they have to stay there if something better comes up. Of course, the odds on NJCU making it to 27/28 without a merger with Kean is pretty up in the air.

Quote from: Caz Bombers on April 16, 2025, 12:48:43 PMVery confusing because I thought Kean was basically absorbing NJCU and not having athletics there anymore.

New Paltz is joining the NJAC, they'll want nothing to do with the CUNY schools that don't fund athletics. The future additions referenced are likely from the Skyline. I'm thinking Purchase, Old Westbury, possibly others.

The proposed merger basically has no information on athletics. See: https://www.kean.edu/jerseycity#g

But yeah. I think NJCU planning for things in 2027/2028... well, you've got to have a plan, always, but i'd consider it highly speculative.

Quote from: Kuiper on April 14, 2025, 04:31:02 PMWashington & Lee

Strong non-conference schedule, opening with games at Emory and Oglethorpe and then home to Covenant (who beat them 3-0 away last season) and away to Mary Washington.  No Johns Hopkins this year, but if anything the schedule is harder.

W&L also has Christopher Newport later in the season and is still showing an open date. That is a full and challenging non-conference schedule.

I'm hoping to get to the Atlanta games this year. Really hoping they look more like the team that ended the season than the one I saw get manhandled by Covenant last year. I suspect year 2 under Shabazz will start better than year 1.

Quote from: NEPAFAN on April 11, 2025, 02:31:54 PMForgive my ignorance but why is he looking for a job?

Singleton? He left Goucher women's team. Not sure of the circumstances but it was oddly timed.

Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on April 11, 2025, 09:17:19 AM

Quote from: jknezek on April 10, 2025, 01:08:02 PM

Quote from: Kuiper on April 10, 2025, 12:31:22 PMCross posting from the Coaching Carousel thread

Mark Mettrick announces his retirement from Gettysburg

Anyone know if Mike Singleton is still looking for a job? That's less than 90 minutes from Towson, one of the areas he posted interest in.

Wow!!! My son thought Mettrick was a very good guy during recruiting. He had some deep ties to our Maryland area, but did not get many recruits from what I remember. Everybody around here liked him. As far as Cent. Conf, Gettysburg always played hard. Never easy at least for F&M.

As for Mike, don't know, but may be tough to commute from Balt. County where I think he lives (about 1.5 hours over mostly back roads), but if there is a will there is a way. Gettysburg is semi isolated. Would be an amazing option for him and I hope he gets a shot. Any college would benefit with him as their coach.

yeah. I saw it was 90 minutes from Towson. My wife and I once worked 90 minutes apart. We lived in the middle. 45 each way was long, but not too bad. Again, not knowing what happened at Goucher, I'm still surprised he hasn't found a new job yet. Or at least, hasn't announced a job. I know he has his consulting company.

As I put in the other thread... anyone know if Mike Singleton is still looking for a job? That's not far from the areas he mentioned in his seeking work post on LinkedIn. I have no idea what happened at Goucher, but this would be a pretty good job.

Quote from: Kuiper on April 10, 2025, 12:31:22 PMCross posting from the Coaching Carousel thread

Mark Mettrick announces his retirement from Gettysburg

Anyone know if Mike Singleton is still looking for a job? That's less than 90 minutes from Towson, one of the areas he posted interest in.

Sure. The grad transfer rule is about to become a lot less relevant now that covid years are over. And yes, the UAA schools had an advantage due to their graduate programs and reputation. But that's ending. As you pointed out, those students finished undergrad degrees elsewhere and had the benefit of playing sports for another year at another school while getting a grad degree.

It's a lot different than portal hopping because you simply don't care about where the education comes from, you just want to play a sport and have to get credits while you do it.

Quote from: Mavchamp on April 09, 2025, 07:43:16 PMTBH...I think the time of non-scholarship athletes is running out.

For smaller schools....where NIL money won't be abundant.... the only way to hold onto their athletes will be via scholarships.

Does that mean D3 eventually ends up adding limited scholarships?  Perhaps.
Does that mean more and more schools will opt to D2 or NAIA to offer scholarship?  Perhaps.

That's why I think this 10 year deal for the ASC is a bandaid and not a cure for a bigger problem.  Unless the ASC can grow to beyond the six.

Ultimately....IMHO.... we have 10 years for UMHB to prepare for FCS and everyone else to prepare for D2 or NAIA.

Who knows what things will look like in 10 years.  Maybe...just maybe the NCAA or the courts can get NIL and the portal under some kind of control.

I think this is a weird take. D3 is non-scholarship. The students generate revenue for the school. The students know when they go they are playing for the love of the game. Sure, a select few will star and try and transfer out, especially from the football factory D3 schools, but the students that go to the school because the school is what they want, academically, socially, geographically, that's not going to be a problem. And that is most of D3.

You look at the NESCAC schools, the UAA, and the vast majority of the better academic D3s, and transfers in or out aren't really a problem. Even the vast majority of liberal arts schools that are the backbone of the northeast and midwest D3s, the athletes are there playing the sport because they love it, but they are going to the school for the education.

It's the schools that don't have that student body, they have athletes chasing playing time and just paying credits as a fee, and those are not going to hold on to their best athletes. But the athletes were never at the school because it's where they wanted to be, it's just a stepping stone to somewhere else, and the education probably matters very little to them if at all. But those schools are, by far, the outliers of D3.

Plus, it only matters in football and basketball. Most D3s need the revenue. So you miss out on those players that would be borderline D1? No big deal, it's not really what 99% of D3 schools are competing for anyway. If you think D3 is going away, I don't think you understand D3 finance.

UMHB in football, and that program, is not what D3 looks like in general.

When you are a D3 school recruiting football players instead of a school recruiting students, this is what happens. The athletics really should be a companion piece to the academics. But we've seen schools, in the search for football championships and basketball championships especially, making the sport the important part. How does that make sense when you are paying to play and your odds of going pro are about 10-15 in 3000 D3 football playing seniors per year... counting European leagues and Canada and indoor, not just the NFL, where it's probably less than 1 per year on average?

It doesn't. But that's what happened at too many D3s who think the point is to win championships, not education. D3 isn't a mini-D1. When the priorities get confused, this is what happens. I just don't have much sympathy. It's not the portal that ruined D3, its priorities that have filtered down to the athletes. One crappy set of credits a student doesn't care about is the same as another crappy set of credits at another school, the important thing is playing time, right?

If your D3 team is constantly in the portal recruiting, something is wrong. If your D3 team is constantly losing kids to the portal, something is wrong. Students aren't coming for your school, your school is just a few large checks and the annoyance of credits while they get to play football.

Quote from: IC798891 on March 27, 2025, 10:10:37 AM

Quote from: jknezek on March 27, 2025, 09:19:46 AMI'm also kind of shocked that the club teams don't pay for themselves. I know we did at W&L. I think the club rugby and soccer teams got a whopping $1000 each from the school every year, but everything else the players paid for.

But it's hockey, which means a rink/facility that is probably not multi use.

I know. Hockey is the most crazily expensive sport. Again, it's a club sport. I'm surprised the school is paying much of anything for it. In my experience, that's not really how club sports at colleges work. The college doesn't pay, the athletes pay. I'm not sure why renting rink time would change that equation much for a club sport. More expensive for the athletes, but if you grew up playing youth hockey you know the drill on expenses.

That will be interesting. If 50% of the students are athletes and you take a huge enrollment hit, how does that save money? I guess they have the numbers showing that the programs cost more than the tuition, or they believe they can stabilize enrollment without the sports, but this seems odd to me.

I'm also kind of shocked that the club teams don't pay for themselves. I know we did at W&L. I think the club rugby and soccer teams got a whopping $1000 each from the school every year, but everything else the players paid for. Though I suppose field maintenance we also didn't pay for, but unless you are just going to turn those fields into meadows someone still has to maintain those spaces.

I've always been interested in the dynamics of DIII due to the variety of different schools. I have always maintained that the academic powerhouses have an advantage in most sports because they can recruit up.

When I look at the NESCAC schools, those are the players I see. When I look at the big research schools, well, many of the very best are D3s. Sure you have Stamford and a few others, but if you are big into STEM, and want to balance that with athletics, D3 opportunities abound in ways D1 can't match.

So these schools can recruit up. And in sports with small numbers, like basketball, I think that makes it a lot easier to level the playing field versus schools who have looser admittance standards who have access to a bigger pool of really good players with less of an academic background. Of course, there are more schools going for those same kids, so coach, facilities, experience and more matter in that difficult recruiting.

But I think the dichotomy of high academic schools being able to grab from a small pool of above D3 talent player vs a lot of schools fighting over a larger pool of talented but less academically proven players, holds true across almost all sports.

Football being the most popular exception. And here I see 2 big differences, one of which is about to end. 1) The NESCAC didn't compete in the playoffs so the highest academic schools weren't as represented and 2) roster size. It's a lot easier to "recruit up" a couple players a year. It's a lot harder to do it 20x a year, every year. Though we are seeing JHU have significant and prolonged success, so it is definitely possible. The addition of the NESCAC to the D3 football playoffs is really going to be interesting.

Regardless, when you look across D3, the schools consistently going deep in many sports, tend to be high academic schools.

Field Hockey Final 4 -- Tufts, Middlebury, Salisbury, Williams
Mens Soccer Final 4 -- W&L, Conn College, Amherst, Middlebury
Womens Soccer Final 4 -- Wash U, CNU, William Smith, Emory
Womens Volleyball -- Juniata, Hope, JHU, UWW
Womens CC -- MIT, Chicago, Williams, NYU
Mens CC -- UW-L, Wartburg, Pomona-Pitzer, UWW
Football -- Susquehanna, North Central, UMU, JHU
Women's BBall -- Smith, UW-O, NYU, UW-Stout
Mens BBall -- Wesleyan, NYU, Trinity, Wash U


Or you can look at the Learfield Cup --

2022/2023 final - top 10 -- JHU, Tufts, Williams, MIT, Emory, Chicago, CNU, Middlebury, Wash U, C-M-S.
2023/2024 final - top 10 -- JHU, Williams, Emory, Tufts, NYU, Middlebury, MIT, Wash U, C-M-S, UWW

Fall 2024 Partial -- JHU, Middlebury, W&L, Tufts, Emory, Williams, Amherst, CMU, Wash U, MIT

Ok, the last one I snuck in just for my Generals. W&L does well in the Fall, but will not be 3rd after Winter!

Quote from: TLU05SA on March 19, 2025, 03:04:41 PM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on March 19, 2025, 02:21:56 PM

Quote from: TLU05SA on March 19, 2025, 09:40:55 AM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on March 19, 2025, 07:24:13 AMOne thing I noticed about yesterday's announcement was that the ASC used the term "faith-based"*, which is certainly understandable given the conference's go-forward membership. 

That is spin. This is about money, not faith.

It's about money, especially for the returnees, but for the schools at the heart of the conference, make no mistake that faith is a big part of their game plan.  The conference doesn't make that change if it isn't. 

I respectfully disagree. This is about money, even for the heart of the conference. UMHB and HSU (and probably ETBU) have determined it is cheaper to pay Schreiner and McMurry than the costs and expenses to operate an athletic scholarship program in DII, DI or NAIA.

It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out.

Especially over a 10yr basis. If it was low 7 figures, what is that $2MM per school? So 4MM total? My understanding is that it's not an annual, it's a total in the low 7 figures. That's 400K a year, 100K per school. It costs between 50K and 150K to fly a football team somewhere. Cutting out one flight game a year, for each of the Baptist 4, and that covers it. And that's just for football. Being an independent in D3 in all other sports was going to cost piles. So was going to the C2C. And going D2 was going to cost more than $100K per school per year.

Really this is a bargain. I'm honestly shocked it's a 10yr contract for that little. I was expecting 5 years max. The two joining schools didn't negotiate for enough. Maybe they decided a little was better than nothing, but the way the Baptist 4 were over a barrel, that's a very favorable number for them.